


The Trail - Remastered

by nonbinaryvision



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Marvel Comics
Genre: Classic Avengers, Hank McCoy is an Avenger, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Resurrection, She/Her Pronouns for The Vision, Temporary Character Death, They/Them Pronouns for The Vision, i guess?, idiots to lovers, set during Avengers 160
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-20
Updated: 2021-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-29 00:48:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30148200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinaryvision/pseuds/nonbinaryvision
Summary: Something was definitely a little off about Simon, something Hank can’t quite put into words (which is frightening, for a man with as many words as Hank), but at the end of the day Hank decides that he’s probably just a little lonely, a bit overeager to please and to make a good impression, so he takes pity on the strange man, and decides to himself that he will be Simon’s friend.If nothing else, he looks like he could use one.
Relationships: Eric Williams & Simon Williams, Hank McCoy/Simon Williams, Vision & Simon Williams, Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Kudos: 2





	The Trail - Remastered

Nobody is sure of what to make of Simon yet, despite the good three weeks that have passed since he helped out with Doom and Attuma (and frankly, saved their lives).

Hank included, in all honesty; Simon is a weird fella, and while he does think some of the Avengers are a little harsh in their distrust, he can’t fault them for finding the way he constantly covers up his eyes with dark framed glasses a little weird, or his outdated lingo that might have been regular enough in the 50s, but  _ here _ and  _ now _ just sounded a little out of place.

He acts weird too, not just with the way he covers his eyes, but with how he seems to jump just slightly every time a door gets shut just a little too firmly, rubs his wrists and gets this horrible angsty scent whenever people raise their voices that Hank has become uncomfortably familiar with in just the past few weeks), and becomes oddly stiff whenever someone addresses him.

At first Hank just figured that he was still adjusting to the time period, was still trying to settle into the team and find his place in the strange new world he’d woken rather unceremoniously into, but the longer Hank watches him (in a normal, completely non creepy way of course), the more he can’t help but think that there was something more than just simple homesickness and jet lag, something more baked in deep. Even Cap doesn’t act the way Simon does, doesn’t have the same shy demeanour and doesn’t have the word “sorry” at the tip of his tongue every time someone so much as breathes in his direction.

Something was definitely a little off about Simon, something Hank can’t quite put into words (which is frightening, for a man with as many words as Hank), but at the end of the day Hank decides that he’s probably just a little lonely, a bit overeager to please and to make a good impression, so he takes pity on the strange man, and decides to himself that he will be Simon’s friend.

If nothing else, he looks like he could use one.

As it turns out, friendship is not easily found in Simon Williams. Despite the man’s over-polite exterior, there is a sharp edge of suspicion in him, and despite all Hank’s attempts to get a conversation going with the guy and see what his deal was, he seemed equally determined to shut down all his attempts at friendly small-talk in such a polite, dare he say  _ sweet  _ way that Hank didn’t even realise what was happening before he excused himself to go get some coffee, or read a book or  _ whatever _ it was that Simon did in his spare time. He’s almost a recluse, keeping mostly to himself and only really appearing when it is time to eat or when a meeting is called.

At first it seemed only right to let him get on with it, but the more time that passes the more worried Hank finds himself getting (and isn’t that odd, to feel so concerned for someone who might as well be a complete stranger?), and eventually he decides he needs some kind of intervention.

Not a direct one, of course, he can at least see that Simon is the skittish type and if he does anything too drastic the man would probably freak out and never talk to him again, and though he’s gotten nowhere with his attempts at friendship, he figures that suspicion is easier to deal with then flat-out hate.

So he asks Wanda for help.

He knows she and Vision have been having issues. Vision, out of all of them, seems the most cautious around Simon, which Hank can’t blame her for; he probably wouldn’t be handling it too well himself if someone with his brain waves showed up out of a box after being dead for 10 years claiming that he had stolen their mind.

The pair of them have been having more and more frequent arguments, with Vision preoccupied with her identity issues and Wanda not taking kindly to her sudden insistence that she was “emotionless, perfectly logical”, etc etc etc. And while he  _ is  _ sympathetic to Vision’s plight (she’s taking it better than  _ he  _ would, in any case), he can also definitely understand Wanda’s frustration with Vision’s sudden negative outlook on life. She’s been so  _ quiet  _ recently, no doubt almost as absorbed as Vision is in all that has been going on recently...

So it’s surprising when Wanda accepts, and tells him she’ll find out what she can about Simon. She is after all the least weird out of the bunch of them to Simon (which when you think about it is sort of hilarious, then if you think about it a bit longer it gets sort of depressing), so Hank hopes he might warm up to the pretty curly-haired woman faster than he does to the blue bouncing beastie.

Hank’s meddling pays off; he was right, it turns out, about Simon warming up faster to Wanda, and the two leave the mansion the following day. Hank intends to go to the lab and spend the remainder of the day with decidedly non-Simon related thoughts, but of course nothing of the sort happens and he is instead punched in the face by the statue of a late Avenger, who destroys the lab and later pulverises himself into dust on Vision, and then--

Well, long story short it’s a while before he gets time to sit down with Wanda and ask her how her date with Simon went.

Turns out, a bus nearly mowed down a bunch of civilians leaving Wanda and Simon to save them, so nothing  _ really  _ got discussed, because by the time they got back they had an even  _ more  _ miserable Vision to deal with.

Typical.

But it’s frustrating, because now Simon seems more afraid of going outside than he ever was, and Graviton showing up intent on murdering them and half of New York too  _ certainly _ doesn’t help matters...

He’s on the verge of giving up in his attempts to offer Simon friendship at this point, more and more disheartened these days with thoughts of his past team where things were a little less complicated constantly coming up and threatening to overwhelm him. He knows it was his choice to leave, but that doesn’t change the nostalgia he finds himself feeling every time he looks at his new team. He liked to think himself pretty settled in at this rate, but more and more that sort of thinking was getting challenged.

So it’s sort of surprising when an opportunity to help out the poor fellow (and distract him from his longing for Bobby’s childish antics and Jean’s scolding tone that hides her smile and--) smacks him right in the face (literally at that; it took at least a week for his fur to grow back from when it had been singed), in the form of his big brother, a mister Eric Williams.

Admittedly Hank had been rather upset to see that a fellow avenger was trying to talk down the guy that just tried to kill him instead of pummeling him to dust, but hey, he’s an only child, what does he know about these things?

Still, while he’s willing to give the soft-spoken, well-mannered boy the benefit of the doubt, when his brother knocks them out and puts Simon and poor Vision on some convoluted trial, he can’t help but think that this is a little over the top.

“Now…” Eric Williams starts, standing over Vision with his scythe-hand pointed to where they were, by the table. To her credit, Vision looks unafraid as he continues to speak down at her. “Tell the court who you are and how you came to be.”

For a second, Hank swears he can see her consider defying him, but no, instead she placidly says “Very well,”, and recounts her story in her even, composured tone.

“I am… the Vision. My first memories are of Ultron-5, the evil mechanoid who gave me life to serve him in his wars on the Avengers. He claimed to have created me, but later I learned that he had merely reanimated my android body, which had actually been created decades before by Professor Horton. This body first knew life as the original Human Torch, hero of the 40’s and 50’s. Knowledge of that incarnation had been erased from my computer mind. In order to give his catspaw a persona, Ultron reprogrammed me with brain-wave tapes stolen from the Avengers’ files--tapes of Wonder Man’s mental patterns, made before his apparent death.” Vision paused for a moment, and met Eric’s gaze with a burning stare.

“Thus, in many ways, I am somewhat like the real Simon Williams,” she finishes, glancing barely at the Simon that sat next to Hank.

He hasn’t been paying much attention to Simon next to him, to be honest, he’d been more focused on the scythe at the end of Eric Williams’ hand, but now that Vision has brought his attention to him he can sense the way Simon just barely trembles in his seat, the metal of his shackles rattling slightly along with him. Hank wants to--well, he doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows that if he could, he’d like to comfort the poor man somehow. If only to get that rattling sound out of his ears, because now that he’d noticed it he couldn’t seem to ignore it again.

“Do not seek to foolishly incriminate yourself! If you are but a mechanical  _ mockery  _ of my brother, I will destroy you!” Eric spits, the razor edge of that scythe thrust right in the poor Vision’s face.

But she does not cower or even flinch, just meets his gaze with her cold, almost indignant one. “I am not a--!”

“SILENCE!” Eric roars at her, and Simon next to Hank  _ flinches  _ so harshly that he nearly falls out of his chair. Hank doesn’t want to tear his gaze away from Vision, especially not with that blade so close to her face but he can’t help but give Simon a quick glance.

He’s trembling even more severely than before and is clenching his fists so hard he can see his knuckles turning white. It’s hard to see his expression with the thick red goggles on but he can see his teeth biting and dragging at his lower lip repetitively, and his right leg is shaking up and down as he stares down at the table.

Hank wants to say something, distract him somehow from what he’s feeling but he doesn’t know what would help; everything he’s tried previously has just resulted in a polite dismissal, and of course he doesn’t want to  _ pressure  _ him into being his friend or anything like that, but he just seems so lonely and especially in moments like these, Hank feels like he should have someone he can open up to, or at the very least feel relatively relaxed being next to.

Hank’s mouth opens, but Eric starts to speak again and whatever he was planning on saying dies on his tongue.

“Once, with the help of the Space Phantom, I offered you humanity! I planned to place your mind in Captain America’s body!”

Hank gapes in shock. He almost wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, and if he wasn’t sure before he most certainly was now; this man was insane.

“Tell the court if you  _ dare _ , how you answered my offer!”

Vision hesitates for the barest of seconds, her expression darkening. “... I said yes”

Hank feels like someone just dunked a bucket of ice water over his head. He might’ve gasped if he  _ could _ , but he’s completely frozen in shock. Vision would  _ never _ … The Vision  _ he  _ knew would have never even  _ consider  _ such a thing.

“Of course you did! You had no doubt that you were my brother and that you had a right to a human body--even at the expense of a fellow Avenger!”

“I… can’t believe it!” Hank finally manages to gasp, and it is with  _ disgust  _ that he now glowers at Vision; obviously, Vision had a far, far crueller streak in her than Hank previously realised. Was she really so desperate to be human that she was willing to wear the skin of another person, especially someone Hank thought she’d respected?!

“Have you become more noble since then? Is this ‘Wonder Man’ who has supposedly risen from the dead, an imposter you are trying to  _ shield  _ from my wrath?”

Simon starts to slump in his chair, and he looks so dreadfully  _ terrified  _ that for a second Hank almost forgets to be mad at Vision.

“I recall another time you risked destruction… shielding me from the deadly attack of a HYDRA assassin… like a true brother would!” Eric muses, his posture softer, less threatening than before as he stands over Vision, who is looking not at him but instead at Wanda, meeting her glistening eyes across the table.

Eric turns to T’Challa, who’s been so still Hank’d forgotten about him. “Do you concur, Panther?”

“No Avenger would deliberately allow anyone to die! Not even you, Reaper!” T’Challa says, no, he  _ declares _ , and it is with determined, resolute  _ purpose  _ that he turns to Vision.

“Vision! Please tell the ‘court’”--and Hank can hear his discontempt for this court in his voice, and frankly, he can’t blame him--“the reason you apparently agreed to help steal Captain America’s body!”

“I did so because I saw Captain America himself hiding in the shadows, signalling me to play along until he could spring our trap,” Vision explains.

Hank relaxes for a moment in  _ relief _ , breathes out a quiet “ _ whew! _ ” under his breath, then straightens up again.

“ _ What? _ But, I thought-”

T’Challa cuts across him before he can finish. “You were  _ wrong _ , Reaper! You seem to have a habit of being wrong!”

Eric’s face contorts in anger, but T’Challa continues, unafraid and bold as ever. Hank admires his courage, his refusal to play nice to this madman.

“The Vision just won't fit into the role you cast them! And why should they? They are their own… being! Their life is in their own hands!”

T’Challa pauses to stare at Eric witheringly. “They have taken a wife. When the Avenger Mantis was joined in spiritual oneness with the Swordsman, the Scarlet Witch and the Vision were also wed.”

Eric  _ recoils _ in disgust, thrusts the glimmering blade of his scythe right in T’Challa’s face. It doesn’t connect, but only barely.

“No!” he howls at him, his eyes manically darting around but his blade is steady, still pointed at T’Challa’s neck. “My brother would  _ never  _ marry a stinking  _ mutant _ !”

Yeah, Hank hates this man.

“So, you are a bigot as well as a fool,” T’Challa snidely replies, without any fear of the sharp edge of the Reaper’s scythe. “I have no more questions for the Vision.”

“I’ll ignore your insults, Panther… for now,” Williams spits at him, doesn’t even look at Vision, who remains statuesque as ever.

“The Inquisitor calls Wonder Man to the stand!” the Reaper declares, and curiously, the moment his gaze lands on Simon next to him, the man’s trembling stops. He’s still as stiff as a skeleton, sure, still looks like he might pass out from stress but now he’s so still and Hank thinks that he preferred it when he was trembling like a leaf in fall.

“There’s no need for all this, Eric,” Simon says with a remarkably calm voice for someone who seemed so  _ on the verge _ earlier.

“Do not test my patience!” Williams barks at him, and like before when Eric raised his voice, Simon flinches, and bows his head like a scolded child.

“All right,” Simon reluctantly replies, more unsteady than he’d been a moment ago. “I’ll play your game”

Now that Vision is not the focus of the Reaper’s cruel gaze, Hank sees the cold indifference that she wore when faced with his mad ramblings and his razor-sharp blade melt away into the softer, gentle look that she reserved solely for Wanda as she returns to the Witch’s grasp.

“Darling, he may decide to kill you!” Wanda whisper-shouts at them, angry, but it’s born out of concern, and though Hank is interested in these two, interested in the romance of a mutant and an android, he also can’t help but feel like this should be a  _ private _ affair.

He doesn’t hear what she says next, but Vision’s voice is louder and more difficult to ignore.

“I cannot pretend to be what I am not, Wanda! I am not Simon Williams… and if that is a crime for which I must die, so be it! Better that, than for the true Simon Williams to suffer a second death”

It starts to settle in then, properly, that the Reaper well and truly intended on murdering either Vision or Simon before the day was done. He really-- _ really _ \--was so convinced that one of them was an imposter that he was going to kill one of them.

Hank wants to throw up a little.

“Who are you?” Eric asks, and it is now Simon sitting in the chair Vision was in just a moment ago. He’s still; so still, in fact, that Hank realises that he’s not breathing at all.

“I’m your  _ brother _ , Eric! I am Simon Williams! I’ve been called Wonder Man since Baron Zemo, the Enchantress and the Executioner gave me that name… and my power!”

Despite Simon’s earnest tone, the Reaper does not seem at all affected by what he says.

“Why did they give  _ you  _ this power?”

“They intended to use me against the Avengers. You see, I had gotten in trouble with the law, and--”

“Enough!” Reaper yells, and  _ oh _ , Simon obviously hit a nerve there, though Hank can’t quite imagine why or how.

“So, the Avengers killed you in battle?”

Simon grimaces at the very suggestion. “ _ No! _ It was Zemo!”

“What?” he hears Wanda gasp to his side, the hand that she doesn’t have entwined with Vision’s clasping over her mouth.

“I couldn’t help Zemo kill the Avengers! I turned on him… and got blasted for it! And then… I died”

Simon’s face clouds for a moment (at the memory of dying, no doubt), then he speaks again. “I was told that my body was kept here in a special preservative coffin… but it was stolen”

At last, a crack in the Reaper’s cold facade, when he replies “I know, Simon.  _ I  _ stole it. They had no right to it! But… go on,” in a strained, perturbed tone.

“I-I don’t remember much more! They say I was delivered back here in a crate a while ago--that I seemed like a zombie! The Scarlet Witch traced down a voodoo priest called Black Talon who seemed to be controlling me, but even after the Avengers defeated him, I still walked! Slowly, I began to feel again… to think! I was still confused, but things were coming back. By the time the Avengers had ruined the Living Laser’s attempt to conquer the world with Nuklo and the Serpent Crown, I was all right again!”

The Reaper’s scythe-hand has fallen to his side, and Hank watches in rapt fascination as Eric lifts his mask to look at his brother properly. There’s a scar that he hadn’t noticed before, one right across his eye that has left a slit in his left eyebrow.

“I… wanted to believe it, Simon,” the Reaper-- _ Eric _ \--says sounding  _ choked up _ and tight with emotion, and though this man is a bigot and, quite without question, absolutely insane, Hank can’t help but feel just a little sorry for him. He obviously is doing this from a place of love, warped though it is.

“It is still hard to accept… yet your  _ voice…  _ your manner! You are the same as… before”

It’s almost sweet, in a twisted sort of way.

“I am not as gullible as you, Reaper!” T’Challa growls, standing up and watching the two through those strange, all-white eyes of his mask. “I cannot accept this ‘return from death’. True death is irrevocable. I do not deny that this man lives… but now I realise why I have felt a vague uneasiness in his presence!”

T’Challa turns to Simon who sits rooted to the spot, pinned by the king’s gaze.

“He is  _ not  _ Simon Williams! Nor is he the same as any man who has ever lived!”

Simon rises, uneasily, to his feet, and his trembling is back in full swing but still he raises his hands to his face, and grasps at the edges of those thick red goggles he’s always wearing. “Y-you know?!” he whimpers, then tears those goggles away from his face.

And Hank finds himself looking at a man with the strangest all-red,  _ glowing  _ pair of eyes he’s ever seen, the light of them bright and flickering in the dark room.

“Alright! It’s true! Look! Look at my  _ eyes _ !” Simon all but wails at him, and had he had any tears to cry Hank is certain he would be. “Inside… I-I’m not the same! I don’t know  _ what  _ I’ve become…”. Simon’s voice is quiet, and afraid when he mumbles “... but it  _ scares  _ me,” as he fumbles with his goggles, and puts them back on.

“My… god, Simon,” Eric breathes, almost as quiet as he is.

Vision isn’t nearly so soft-spoken, stands with a bold determination and meets her brother’s gaze head on. “Reaper!” she yells at them, and Eric whips around with a startled look, like he’d  _ forgotten  _ she’d been there. “You are a fool if you think you can have your brother back as he was! It is time to end this. If one of us must die, then destroy me-- _ now! _ ”

She straightens up fully, but stays where she is, right next to Wanda. “Once I imagined--perhaps  _ hoped _ \--that in some way I was Simon Williams! _ I AM NOT! _ What difference if I have the same brain waves! I am  _ unique _ ! I am  _ the Vision _ ! And thus… I am content!”

Tears, messy tears roll down Wanda’s face as she cries “Oh, my darling,  _ yes _ ! And I love you!”, and Hank can’t tell if it’s the fear of losing Vision or the joy of Vision finally declaring herself to be the Vision that is making her weep.

“Perhaps… if Wonder Man has stepped  _ beyond  _ humanity… he and I are the  _ true  _ family!”

“NO!” Reaper roars, “I am not on trial here! I will  _ not  _ be replaced!”

  
That is the last thing Hank can hear before awful, blinding and  _ excruciating  _ pain shocks through his entire body and everything goes completely and entirely blank.


End file.
